Right, I got bored. Time to logic at the incident with Karstah.
Lets lay out some basics.
The Stilling Field has existed for time immemorial, since Thungni Himself. This means the interactions between Stilling Fields have existed since time immemorial. We know that Stilling Fields interacting are usually positive and reinforcing for Dwarf Souls. And we know that a master guiding their student does *not* cause the rune to fail. We know that Stilling Fields are highly personalized. We also know they develop through Deeds, see how Snorri's antimagic bonus has risen and its nature, caused by his Field, has subtly changed after significant deeds
From this chain of knowledge, it seems entirely reasonable to conclude that Stilling Fields are in some way generated and shaped by Runesmith souls and develop as they undergo proper training.
We already knew that the chants and reagents were always crutches, Soul has said as much very clearly in the FAQ and early in the quest. It is the pattern of strikes that matter, and that's confirmed again in Principle One. And that pattern has been likened to a Song or a
Rhythm a huge number of times in this quest. We know from Realms of Sorcery that the Soul is influenced by the Mind, Body, and Actions. We know that chants are used to remind the Runesmith of the proper striking pattern. We know that this puts their mind and thus soul into a certain state.
We also know from this update and the earlier ones this turn that this state is fundamentally important to the forging of Runes. Snorri directly references how his mindset when inscribing Stone attracted Ghyran, Hysh, and Chamon over the others. We know that each Rune has a unique chant and unique Rite - thus what that means is a unique soul-state for each rune. When does this change in the soul occur? It would appear to be at the line "Let Song Remind You" - because we've already established that the chant/song reminds the runesmith's mind and thus their soul. This is where the forging went wrong.
We also know that the golden channels resonate and pulse in time with the influence on the Winds and in time with the Rhythm.
We can deduce something else: given that Runes are stable magical structures, Snorri's observations during the incident, and knowledge that you need metaphysical tools to manipulate magic. It becomes clear that Runesmith souls
do something to the magic inside of them during that state. There is a Process occurring.
We know that Karstah did not mess up the pattern of strikes and physically the rune was correct. We know Karstah experienced physical discomfort, like she was straining and in pain. We know that Magic was entering the Rune, from her. We know that her Stilling Field did not change or shrink. But the rune failed and so there's a third thing, inside of her, that did not work. What is it?
Based on the information listed above I believe that what went wrong is that her Soul couldn't change, it could not perform the necessary process on the Winds inside of it. For some reason, it was static.
Here's some relevant qoutes.
The Rune of Thungni's Presence is first, the strikes and chant do nothing at first, but you knew that would happen.
Time almost falls away, its passing kept only by the ringing of a hammer on metal and the words that leave Karstah's mouth. You devote all of your attention to observing the striking, watching and waiting for that one moment, that threshold, in the striking that renders mundane matter into—
Power flows.
—there.
Between hammer blows, a tenth of the way through the striking, you
see it happen out of the corner of your eye; the Winds in the room flicker, as if something has drawn their attention. The moment is different from the Runes you forged. Stone was perhaps a third of the way through the chant, while the Runes on Aethyrbinder ranged from the very beginning to just before halfway through.
It seems to follow no rhyme or reason, until you realize the Winds seem to react to Karstah's chanting—or the state of her mind than the ringing blow of her hammer.
But why? You think it unlikely to be the chant itself, history has proven you do not need it, and Karstah is only doing so because you had asked her to.
You watch for a moment longer, before it hits you like a fist in the face.
Karstah's hammer swings down just as she speaks, her body lagging behind her soul, the golden lines on her soul
pulse and the Winds of Magic flicker and draw together a little more than before.
Will guides it
The chant is not the cause, but it
is correlation.
The soul, of course it would be. How could you be so stupid to not realize earlier?
What other way could one control a metaphysical substance than with metaphysical tools?
With each pulse of the golden lines, coinciding with key moments in the chant you note pointedly, the Winds move more and more, coalescing and spinning like you saw with the Rune of Stone and Aethyrbinder.
The Aethyr pushes against her Stilling Field and yours, bouncing against the invisible barriers insistently. Lines of orderly magic trickle through, crawling along the ground in a strange pattern before entering Karstah's soul through her feet.
Your eye sees how the energy travels from Karstah to the Rune, bowing and twisting like a string caught in the breeze, before it enters the Rune.
Let song remind y—
You keep watching, waiting for that moment when Karstah's field will weaken and begin to shrink.
And you keep watching.
Karstah's blows are sure and true, the magic from her body enters the Rune.
You keep watching.
Let song rem—
Blow by blow the Rune physically takes shape while more energy feeds the Rune. The golden lines of Karstah's soul pulse.
Why hasn't your heir's field begun shrinking?
Finally we know that the old prototype Windsight eye, and the ability to see the winds in objects, did not interfere with Dolgi forging a rune when Snorri taught him Worldly Warding.
We also know that something during the Inscription process can harm beings with Windsight that look at it. Recall the Chamon Elemental that was blinded during Skarren's forging.
Fourheads tilting and contorting at impossible angles to watch him and his work. One looks where it not ought to have and is blinded by the Glittering One's work for its trouble. It wordlessly screeches in pain, golden tears leaking from its 42 eyes and a forest of blades rising from its form like a hedgehog, as it tumbles and turns away to fall to its knees as perfectly as it walked.
This is what caused the idea of "Runic DRM" to originally arise amongst the theorycrafters like myself by the way.
Its worth also noting that the reduction of the Stilling Field makes Runesmiths vulnerable to soul damage and harm. This is what happened during Snorri forging Skarren.
Anyway, what has changed?
Snorri can now see the Winds in objects, the environment, and emerging from people. He can see mortal souls. Importantly, Windsight is a sense of the Soul according to Realms of Sorcery for 4e WHFRPG, so he's grafted something onto his Soul. His Soul has changed. Snorri now knows the Stilling Field exists, and what the golden channels look like. Snorri's role in the crafting Rite was an observer, rather than guide or teacher yet he also undermines this difference by pointing out how similar the master's role is to an observer.
Its also entirely possible that something else has changed which we are not yet aware of.
Based on observing himself forging, observing Dolgi forging with the old eye, how Snorri didn't even *notice* the Elemental's observance (and it could definitely see the Winds), and the way the winds still passed through Karstah and entered the Rune, I'm going to conclude that the observation of the Winds did not change the outcome. Its not relevant.
That leaves that he can see souls and that his soul has
changed. No other dwarf has a soul like Snorri's right now. This implies that his Stilling Field is somehow different now.
My tentative conclusion right now is that somehow, the changes to Snorri's soul and the state it was in combined to influence his Stilling Field and made it accidentally interfere with Karstah. But this leads to a further question. How? Well, now for that I'm going out a bit more on a limb here.
We know that Runesmiths are vulnerable during inscription as the stilling field reduces and more magic passes through their soul. We know that Thungni did
something to alter the souls of himself and certain other dawi - the Gift. It is known that Dawi Souls can interact with Stilling Fields. So perhaps the structure of Karstah's soul was able to register the changes in Snorri. A Runesmith, which should be allowed to interact. Yet, one that has something grafted onto his soul. And thus the structure of Karstah's soul responded and chose to not make her soul more vulnerable.
Maybe instinct, maybe a structural consequence (like water flowing down an aqueduct). And then Karstah was a stubborn perfectionist and didn't listen to the pain she was feeling and stop when she should have. Thus the severe exhaustion.
But right now, you were making observations!
Watching your students forge a Rune is not a new experience, why you had to go and make sure Dolgi didn't fumble the Rune of Worldly Warding a little under a decade or so ago in fact, but this isn't like those other times.
You have always been here in the position of a teacher, the one providing guidance, not as a silent observer taking notes. Though to be fair there's a fair bit of crossover between the two; what with the scrutinizing, grumbling and staring and the like.
You don your armour and cloak, and your eye allows you to see them in a new light. Barak Azamar emits the Winds of Magic like a fountain, before the metaphysical weight of your Stilling Field forces that energy to the ground and away from you.
How each Rune you complete consumes all the energy around it, and how Barak Azamar pulls power, all eight Winds with a propensity for Chamon, Aqshy and Hysh thanks to the unintended ritual your performed creating Khazagar, up and up from below through the stone beneath your feet.
So something else I noticed. There has been no mention of Deep Magic's interactions with the Winds since The Blind, See. And I think this is very important, especially in the context that when we asked Blizzardwing, the griffon couldn't see a distinction between Deep and Winds. We also know Deep Magic comes from the stone below. So, obvious conclusion, our new eye can now see "into" Deep Magic and reveals that it is made up of the Winds of Magic that lingers in the stone and rock of the planet - which makes it a subset of Earthbound Magic, a concept from the Realms of Sorcery book, an important resource for this quest.
This is not unusual for runes, there's a number of runes we know that interact with Earthbound Magic. Purification being the most prominent one. And since the magic in reagents is relevant for 'tuning' the meaning of a rune, you can easily point out that Runes draw very heavily on it in their creation.
